Wednesday, 28 December 2011

The Snowball Effect

My head is buzzing with all the possibilities for the coming year.

I've started on the list, I'm trying to keep it simple and achievable. However even just by saying 'achievable' I feel I'm dumbing myself down (that will definitely be a thing of the past by the end of 2012).

So then I start again with more fantastic goals and feel I'm setting myself up for failure.

Tricky.

So I have drawn a brainstorm diagram, bit nerdy I grant you, but it has helped focus my ideas. One of my main obstacles in life has always been, well me actually, but more precisely my reaction to my own minor setbacks. This is to say that as soon as I hit a wall I give up. I make myself believe that I can't do it, that I'm useless, that everyone else is better, cleverer or has some secret life code that no one thought to pass on to me. Yes, I realise how ridiculous this sounds. But to me it's real.

And then of course that's it, end of trying to succeed, the wall is there and there's absolutely no way of getting over, round, under or through it. If my first attempt fails I beat myself up.

This will not happen this year. Not because I believe I can suddenly do everything but I have realised, finally, that there is no code, no one is innately better than me and that I am indeed, on the grand scale of things, reasonably clever.

Cue brainstorm diagram idea. I have designed my list with sideways, upwards, downwards inwards and outwards possibilities. There will be small steps in each goal. For example if one of my aims were to be 'ban the use of mobile phones on my street' (it's not) I would have to contact authorities, poll my neighbours, have a clear plan including perhaps the detrimental effects of mobile phones on society etc. As a goal, this would, to be fair probably fail. However, in the process I will have learnt a great deal. I will have moved from one point to another. I will have gained the skill of designing questionnaires, researching statistics, you get my point. Therefore I will not have failed.

As I go through the year I will not be able to systematically tick off my aims one by one as they may not necessarily be fulfilled as I originally set them out, however there will be a snowball effect. On my way I will be picking up knowledge ,meeting new people, maybe finding out that people I already know have ideas that are in sync with mine.

The list, snowflake, isn't complete yet. I have some big plans for myself, my community and even globally. I'm a big believer in reading about other people's 'JOURNEYS'...(I promise I will not use that term again for my experiences) and recently read 'Battersea Park Road To Paradise' and 'Battersea Park Road to Enlightenment' by Isabel Losada http://bit.ly/tI9wLw and 'Eat Love Pray' by Elizabeth Gilbert http://bit.ly/5Gl4i. I loved these books, they didn't necessarily catalog my thoughts, hopes etc but they gave me an insight in to what you can achieve when you find some self belief. Having said this I also read a book on Cosmic Ordering and I definitely didn't get what I ordered. Long story! Just be careful what you order; there's no complaints department in the cosmos!

Isabel Losada is now a 'Friend' of mine on Facebook; her positive nature is genuinely infectious, she invites you in to be a part of her world and is generous with her time and emotions.

By the end if this I know I will meet others who become a part of my snowball and I hope that in some tiny way I will be one of their snowflakes too.